Meet The '20-Year-Old' Independent Candidate Contesting in Karnataka Election

Bengaluru: Article 84 (b) of Constitution of India provides that the minimum age for becoming a candidate for Lok Sabha election shall be 25 years. Similar provision exists for a candidate to the Legislative Assemblies vide Article 173 (b) of the Constitution read with Sec. 36 (2) of the R. P. Act, 1950. But the affidavit of a candidate contesting from BTM layout in Bengaluru states that she is only 20 years old.

Shabrin is the youngest candidate contesting this election, if we go by affidavits filed by the candidates.

Shabrin, who is contesting as an independent, is one of the thirteen candidates contesting from the constituency, which will also see Home Minister Ramalinga Reddy trying his luck from the same.

"I am a 1990 born. I am currently 27 years old. There must have been a mistake," said Shabrin, who is contesting elections for the first time.

When the said error was pointed out, returning officer of the constituency said that the records were all correct.

Seen here is the affidavit submitted by Shabrin.

"We verified her records and the certificates submitted by her shows she is 27 years old. Affidavit is filed by the candidate. There could be an error. But our scrutiny revealed she's eligible to contest," said Rangappa S, returning officer, BTM layout constituency.

However, even with these evidence, on record, she will remain the youngest candidate to have stood for the Karnataka assembly election until another candidate in future declares their age to be less than 20!

Besides this, the number of candidates from the youngest age group of 25-30 is 180, in the 71-80 age group there are 46 candidates and in the above 80 age group there are five candidates.

The highest number of candidates come from the age group of 41-50 - 802 candidates, followed by 669 candidates from the age group of 31-40, 549 from the age group of 51-60 and 301 from the age group of 61-70, according to the analysis of 2560 out of 2655 candidates, by the Association for Democratic Reforms, a NGO in the area of electoral and political reforms.